Call for Papers Transgressive/Trash/Exploitation/Art Cinema
Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Associations
http://www.swtxpca.org
Please make plans to attend our 33rd Annual Conference
February 8-11, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel & Conference Center in
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Hyatt Regency Albuquerque
330 Tijeras NW
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA 87102
Tel: +1 505 842 1234 or 888-421-1442
Proposal submission deadline: December 1, 2011
Who We Are/What We Do
The area chairs are pleased to be seeking submissions for paper presentations on “Transgressive Cinema” for our sixth year at the SW/TX PCA/ACA conference. We encourage submissions on any aspect of “transgressive” film, whether in the realm of horror films, experimental/art cinema, or classic and contemporary exploitation movies, among others. We especially encourage papers that engage the theoretical concept of “transgression” in their presentations. This area at SWTXPCA/ACA has expanded a great deal since our first panel six years ago, and we hope to continue to use this conference as an ongoing forum for scholarly discussion of this often-neglected area of film studies. In addition, this year we will also be continuing our well-received pairing of a film screening followed by a roundtable discussion panel. Last year, we looked Dwain Esper’s 1934 film, Maniac with an eye towards how portrayals of mental illness have been used in both art and exploitation film to explore societal boundaries. This year will be looking at Jean Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet/Le sang d'un poète (1930) paired with Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou (1929). We want to discuss the idea of Trangression in Art/Art in Transgression as it relates to the “high brow” art film.
(If you are interested in being a part of this roundtable, please contact us directly.)

Call for Papers
The limits of what can and cannot be said, done, or shown in a society are prone to change. Consequently, the risqué nickelodeon films of the early 20th century seem quaint, with their images of bare female legs long having lost the ability to induce gasping titillation. Nonetheless, taboos regarding violence, sexuality, race, and political beliefs (among others) persist even in this age of post-everything. We are looking for papers that examine films from the past and the present, from “stag movies” shown at American Legion “smokers” in the ‘50s to today’s multiplex down the street. And we’re looking for papers that take up the question of how such filmmaking helped redefine societal limits, for better or worse. The list of films that could fall under this category is very large, from the mass of low-budget horror films to rare experimental shorts. We also encourage submissions that come from a wide variety of disciplinary and
methodological backgrounds, from classical Freudianism to Critical Legal Theory.
Here’s some topics that might help give you an idea of what we’re looking for:
*Mondo films, especially ones that “exploit” a culture for the sake of spectacle (we might even think of Flaherty’s Nanook of the North in this regard)
*Pornography, including anything that crosses racial or class boundaries (the persistent popularity of, say, Lexington Steele in this “post-racial” era, for instance)
*Films that fall to the extreme political right or left wing, including films whose message has been assimilated into today’s political mainstream (anti-Communist propaganda, “hygiene” films depicting the homosexuality, sympathetic portrayals of minorities, etc.)
*Extreme violence in cinema (documentary footage of death, controversial scenes of sexual violence on film, the “realism” of blood and gore on screen, etc.)
These are just some general ideas; we eagerly anticipate discovering what you have to say about this surprisingly broad and complicated set of topics. Alongside individual paper submissions about particular films or filmmakers, we encourage panel submissions as well, including those on specific genres (e.g. gialli) and directors (e.g. Kenneth Anger).
Please send us title and 100-250-word abstract by December 1, 2011,
through our website database which can be accessed at: http://conference2012.swtxpca.org
33rd Annual Conference Southwest/Texas Popular/American Culture Association
February 8-11, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel & Conference Center in Albuquerque,
New Mexico.
Submission Deadline: 12/1/11
Priority Registration Deadline 12/31/11
Conference Hotel:
Hyatt Regency Albuquerque
330 Tijeras NW,
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA 87102
Tel: +1 505 842 1234 or 888-421-1442
http://www.swtxpca.org
Co-chairs:
John Cline
University of Texas
john-cline@mail.utexas.edu
Rob Weiner
Humanities Librarian Texas Tech University Library
Rweiner5@sbcglobal.net
http://www.swtxpca.org

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